CN05: The Art of Looking

I haven’t always been obsessed with work. Maybe in my 20s. But it's happened again recently. Somewhere between losing a long-term relationship, starting over, and realizing that when you don’t have kids or a partner to orbit around daily, it’s easy to let work become the whole planet.

It’s easier to pour into others. To be useful. To stay busy.

It's harder to turn that same energy toward yourself.

But that’s my job now: to focus on myself.

I signed up for a photography workshop with one of my best friends. Just me and my ancient iPhone; the small one Apple decided to kill off because apparently the world now only comes in super size. You can pry mine from my cold, dead hands.

Each week we get an assignment. I’ve been wandering around, taking photos of whatever catches my attention. Light through windows. Water bending on metal.

It’s helping me notice again.

Not for the sake of output or beauty or even meaning. Just awareness. Just being awake to the world instead of trying to manage or control it.

I’ve spent the last two decades thriving in chaos. Fixing things. Creating order. Filling every silence with motion. But photography asks me to stop. To look. To wait.

And the longer I look, the more I see that everything is already art.

Maybe this is what balance looks like for me now. Not control, not productivity; just paying attention.

A quiet reminder that being alive is the work.